


a picture’s worth a thousand words

by PaulKeatingOfficial



Category: Smallville
Genre: Ableism, Alcohol, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Lionel POV, Maybe? Putting the tag there cause Lionel has some fucked ideas about victimhood, Photographs, Subtle Roman Historian Jibe, Unreliable Narrator, there's humour too guys it's not all depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 14:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulKeatingOfficial/pseuds/PaulKeatingOfficial
Summary: "The only picture of my father and me appears in the LuthorCorp annual report." - Lex Luthor (Reaper)Lionel Luthor knows that to be consumed by the past is to risk losing your edge in the future. Luckily, that's not something that could ever be a problem for him, as he roundly proves to himself in this meandering musing into Smallville's lack of Luthor family photos.





	a picture’s worth a thousand words

**Author's Note:**

> The views and opinions expressed in this fic are those of a hypocritical and contradictory character, and do not necessarily reflect those of the author, who wishes her fave were less of a hypocritical dick...but alas.

Lionel’s hand trailed over the back of a shabby wooden chair as he spoke; brushing his fingers casually along the numerous cracks in the aged paint. The little speech he’d prepared in the back of his black town car rolled easily off his tongue. Easier perhaps, now that he was putting it to use, than it had been, even as he was arranging it.

There wasn’t one thing about the LuthorCorp CEO that didn’t look decidedly out of place, standing poised and collected, in the Kent family living room. He was almost certain that the Burberry ensemble he’d chosen to wear that day would have matched the combined cost of every item of furniture in the house. Lionel brushed his palm over the soft, dark grey wool, before flicking the base of his blazer aside to rest a hand on his hip. His watch alone was surely worth more than Jonathan Kent’s entire wardrobe, tasteless belt buckles included.

He made his entreaty, a humble request that the family keep an eye on Lex during his engagement, and consider appraising Lionel of the situation should his son’s increasingly erratic behaviour become of concern. Lionel would, he assured them, have taken on this responsibility himself, had Lex deigned to invite him to the occasion, or included him in the nuptial proceedings. Lionel’s gaze shifted from father, to son, before settling inevitably on the luminous Martha Kent. The slight flush of her cheeks, and hitch of her breath, may have been imagined, but even if they were, it was enough to make Lionel lose his place.

He recovered with ease, from his momentary stumbling, and offered a sum of money in recompense that Jonathan was quick to refuse. The man’s vehemence was palpable. Martha took her husband’s arm and began to guide him away as the Kents retreated to another room to discuss Lionel where he wouldn’t overhear. Lionel couldn’t blame Lex for his interest in the Kents, though he could certainly fault the unabashed emotionality of his association. They were a fascinating family, at least two of them, and if Lionel’s presence hadn’t always been met with abundant hostility, he might have taken it upon himself to visit once or twice before.

The Kents disappeared behind the dividing wall, Jonathan being corralled by his wife the entire way. He seemed reluctant to let Lionel out of his sight. It was as if he thought the moment he turned his back, Lionel would set his sights on the silverware. Lionel couldn’t help but smile at his reticence, which he was sure would only increase the farmer’s suspicions. Reluctantly, he left Lionel alone, presumably lamenting the copper wiring Lionel was sure to start ripping from the walls.

Lionel chuckled to himself. As if there were anything in this house worth stealing. Slipping his hands into his trousers’ silk-lined pockets, Lionel looked idly around the room. The stools propped up by the kitchen counter bore a myriad of scratches and chips, as did the low coffee table by his leg, and the living room sofa looked a good deal too old to still be of use. Lionel had heard homes described as ‘lived-in’ before, but he wasn’t sure there was any dwelling he knew that was more deserving of the expression.

The entire house was a perfect encapsulation of the concept of homely; and something about that made Lionel uneasy. He had never been able to trust that kind of blatant demonstration of goodwill. Not that he thought the Kents quite had it in them to be wilfully duplicitous in that regard but, frankly, Lionel didn’t trust it whether it was purposeful or not. He’d simply been around too long to have faith in notions such as homely, or safe, even when they were enforced by the sort of aggressive decency that Jonathan Kent embodied.

No-one was beyond corruption, Lionel silently informed the empty room. A picture of Jonathan, glaring up at him from a photo frame on the mantel, seemed to disagree. Its strong gaze bore into him, apparently keeping an eye on Lionel when the man himself could not. Lionel paid it no mind. With mild interest, he noted the sheer number of photographs in the room he occupied. The parade of Kents, and their associates, marched along the room’s walls and shelves, continuing into the kitchen and, Lionel assumed, the rest of the house. Leisurely, Lionel wandered towards the picture of Jonathan, careful not to disturb the clutter perched atop the disorderly coffee table as he passed. The moment he reached the photo, he moved it aside, leaving room for a far more flattering photograph of Martha to steal focus. She laughed towards the camera, hair falling over her shoulder and arms overflowing with produce.

Lionel examined the photos before him. For every image of Martha or Jonathan, there were at least three or four of Clark. It seemed that every moment of the boy’s life, pivotal or unexceptional, had been captured, and preserved for posterity. And his parents, one or both of them, appeared in plenty of the shots. There they were, playing with Clark, guiding him, instilling in him the Kent charm that all but radiated from the collection in nigh on heavenly chorus.   

Amidst this forest of memento, one picture in a polished wooden frame caught Lionel’s attention. It was a family portrait, a little more formal than the others, though that wasn’t evident from their apparel. But even despite the over-abundance of denim, no viewer could help but be struck by the family’s allure. Lionel, though his eyes were always for Martha, took his time to appreciate how handsome a family they were together. Each of them had been gifted with individual appeal, and this picture in particular, with its strong jawlines and copious flannel, drew them together in the exemplification of the down home, all-American, salt-of-the-earth household. If it were going to be true of anyone, it may as well be true of the Kents.  

There had been a Luthor family portrait, once. These days, Lex may decry their lack of pictorial history, but he seemed to forget that at one point, their proper immortalisation had been a prospect Lionel was profoundly invested in. Of course, there had been pictures of the family from events at Lex’s school, or the various functions they’d attended, but this was to be a different affair altogether. Lionel had insisted on an oil painting, and it had been a project plagued by complications from the start. There were attempts, from several sides, to persuade him towards a more conventional enterprise, but if Lionel was going to do this, he was going to do it right.

His exacting standards managed to run off at least two or three artists before the work had even begun. Eventually, however, he found a professional with whom he could trust the project. They had posed for it, Lionel in the centre of the composition, a hand on Lex’s shoulder and Lillian at his side. Even with Lex’s constant complaints about the itchy shirt he’d worn, and how his feet were sore from standing, the artist was able to begin work in earnest.

Lionel kept an eye on the project as it slowly emerged, and was very happy with the resemblance, although both his and his son’s unruly hair had been painted a little more conservatively, to preserve the picture’s gravitas.  Then, shortly after the primary work was complete, the Smallville meteor shower struck. The portrait could not have been further from his mind in the hours, days, after that event. His whole self, mind and body, had been too wrapped in apprehensively waiting for updates on Lex’s condition after they’d carried him out from the corn field.

Lionel dragged his eyes away from the Kent picture. He frowned at the wall that separated him from the family feverishly whispering about him, elsewhere in the house. His debt to Jonathan for his help that day had been repaid many years ago; so there was no place for this swoop in his stomach now, as the issue had already been thoroughly resolved. Lionel shook his head, this house was clearly a poor influence on him. He paced the length of the room, gaze wandering, looking for something new to hold his attention. Absently, Lionel picked up a book left on the kitchen counter and flipped through its pages without seeing them.

A few months after the shower, once the doctors had made it clear that Lex’s hair was unlikely to return, Lillian had been appalled to learn that Lionel still intended to have the portrait completed as is. She had asked, then cajoled, then demanded of him, that if he were still going to have the portrait painted and hung in the main room, then it should be retouched to account for Lex’s altered appearance. Askance, Lionel had asked incredulously if she really thought that was something Lex wanted to see. For reasons Lionel couldn’t fathom, Lillian assumed it would be easier for Lex, and accused Lionel of trying to hide his son’s condition for the sake of his own pride.

That was the wrong approach for her to take, because obviously, easier did not mean better; especially for a Luthor. If Lillian thought that Lionel was about to start coddling Lex, simply because he’d been in an accident, then she didn’t understand her husband at all. Personally, Lionel couldn’t imagine the shame he’d have felt to see the world around him change to reflect his misfortune, constantly reminding him of the difference in himself.

He’d been unlucky enough to have had a taste of that in people’s reactions to him after he’d been blinded. There were no were no words he could find to explain the distaste he held for the people speaking to him in softened voices as if he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, understand them. It was humiliating, his own son making unreasonable concessions to him out of pity, and all the decisions beginning to be processed without his approval; decisions they tried to make for, and about, him. Then there were people touching him, hands on him all the time, testing, prodding, guiding, as if he were no longer capable.

Although, the corner of Lionel’s mouth tugged upwards, his reticence concerning help did rather depend on which set of hands were on him at the time. The entire experience only further solidified his conviction in his opinion on this decade old argument with his late wife. To alter Lex’s portrait then, would have been as galling as if, in learning of his blindness, light-sensitive glasses had been scrawled across the eyes of all extant images of him.  

Lillian had relented to his position once he had explained his reasoning differently, which of course, meant untruthfully. He’d managed to convince her that to him, the portrait was a reflection of how they had been, in the moment of the painting’s inception; it was an instance in the life of their family, preserved as it was, in perpetuity. If that truly had been Lionel’s motivation, there would have been nothing to stop him hiring a photographer to manufacture some unremarkable piece of homespun memorabilia.

What Lillian was not willing to understand, was that their portrait was not some throwaway memento. It was a symbol. It was the continuation of a grand tradition, a legacy upheld by great houses throughout history. It was an institution in which Lionel intended to take part. So, the Luthor portrait continued production as it was, with Lionel never entertaining the thought that it would do otherwise. But despite his conviction, and Lillian’s reluctant approval, the picture was not displayed immediately. It went unframed and unhung for at least a year. But it wasn’t until learning of Lillian’s second pregnancy that Lionel understood his reticence. He couldn’t display a picture of their family, not when that family wasn’t yet complete.

Immediately, Lionel sought out a new artist. He wasn’t able to re-employ the former, owing to some unfortunate complications following a brief dalliance the previous year. The only objections raised this time were a litany of tired sighs, which Lionel, engrossed in his project, barely heard. It was easy to ignore when he was the only one who remained involved, posing alone so that the painter could add an infant held in the crook of his free arm. The additions were completed during the pregnancy, though a few facial features were added after Julian’s birth, to finish the piece.  

Then, finally, Lionel had what he had been seeking. The portrait was framed and hung above the mantelpiece in the drawing room. Though he wouldn’t admit it, Lionel was a little surprised at the emotion it managed to evoke. Intellectually, he understood that had been the aim of its creation, but now that it was displayed, every bit the centrepiece he’d imagined, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever really believed it would work. His work often took him away from home, but there likely wasn’t a day that went by when he was in that house, that Lionel didn’t stop in the drawing room a moment to take it in. For as long as Julian was alive, the portrait was a fixture of the Luthor household.

A time too brief to withstand.

The day after it happened, Lionel found himself in the drawing room. After the panic, the rage, the cold anguish rampaging through him and out to the rest of the world, or perhaps during all of those things, his feet beat that well-trod path once again. There was nowhere else for his impotent emotions to take him. He stood, barefoot on the wooden floor, close enough to touch the ridges and gentle bumps of paint spread over the canvas. His vigil wasn’t disturbed, or interrupted; no-one dared to.

Lionel had no way to know how long he remained like that, and to this day could not recall anything that had happened inside him during the minutes, or hours, he lingered there. Some instinct, buried deep within his mind, had closed that period to his recollection, and even if he wanted to lift that wall, Lionel wasn’t sure he could. Nevertheless, his unwilling imagination sufficed. What was certain, however, was that at some point that day, Lionel had torn the portrait from the wall with his own hands.

In his fervour, he’d swept almost all the decorative pieces from the mantel, statuettes and vases swiftly littering the hardwood floor with collateral damage. Bits of glass and stone mingled and crushed beneath Lionel’s feet, but it didn’t matter. The portrait didn’t belong there anymore, not in full view, for all manner of uncaring, indifferent eyes to witness. It wasn’t theirs. It was his, and it was coming with him. Afterwards, the room was neatened, and Lionel’s cuts and scratches were tended to, but not one word was uttered about the incident in Lionel’s presence.

Sometime later, Lillian had another piece of art hung above the fireplace; a landscape of rolling hills. It was pretty, inoffensive and meaningless. For everyone else, it was far less painful to look at than the bare wall, significant in its emptiness, marked only by the scratches the gilded frame had left in the paint during its removal. But not for Lionel.

When he’d noticed the new painting, and given his general avoidance of that side of the house that was likely some time after it had been hung, it had frozen him. They couldn’t just leave it at the absence of his son. They needed to erase him, to seek a replacement. This moment, unlike the aftermath of Julian’s death, was as clear to him now as it had been when it had occurred. He could still feel ice-cold iron encasing his chest. He could still hear the conversation dying around him as he witnessed this slight to his son’s memory. Lionel hadn’t said a word.

Julian’s portrait, as Lionel thought of it, lived in Lionel’s study. He didn’t hang it again, nor was it displayed anywhere that it would be easy to view. It stayed in the far corner of his office, where Lionel hardly looked at it, barely acknowledging its presence. After Lillian’s death, it was removed from the house altogether. An homage to family was no longer appropriate when that family no longer existed. Lionel would leave the memorials in the graveyard, where they belonged.

He didn’t ask Lex if he’d like to keep the painting, after Lionel decided he would no longer have it near him. That was more than Lionel could concede. In any case, Lex had never liked the portrait. Lionel had overheard him complaining to his mother that the eyes followed him around the room. It was ridiculous, of course, for Lex to be cowed by a picture. Being unnerved by an inanimate object was hardly becoming of a Luthor.

Perhaps, Lionel considered, coming back to himself somewhat, Lex would have liked it better had it been more like the array of Kent family photos scattered around him. Lionel could have laughed. He couldn’t fathom why people would need so many casual snapshots proving the existence of their life. Why anyone would need, or want, photographic evidence of their childhood was beyond him. He trusted his own memory well enough, and was unimpressed that others couldn’t do the same. Besides, some things were too complex to preserve in an image. And some things ought not be preserved at all.

He heard movement in the next room and Lionel snapped back entirely to the present. Looking at his watch, he couldn’t determine how long he’d been adrift in thoughts and cursed himself for not remaining alert. Clark re-entered the space, bringing with him, as he so often did, a welcome distraction from Lionel’s own musings.

Returning to the business at hand, Lionel briefly went through the motions of his appeal. He thanked Clark for his family’s hospitality, entreated him again for Lex’s sake, and made his farewells before he further overstayed his welcome. As he left, Lionel once again let his eyes travel over the photographs surrounding them. It was a subtle gesture, but it put an uneasiness in Lionel’s chest. He quickly covered the sensation by imploring Clark to wish his mother well, loud enough that he was sure Martha, and her husband, could hear.

Outside, Lionel slipped into the back of his black Lincoln, flipping open his cell phone and putting any untoward thoughts out of his mind. What had happened in the Kent living room was the idle meditations of an indolent moment, and Lionel wouldn’t allow them to interfere with his work. The car rolled slowly out of the long drive, kicking up small stones and a haze of dust under its wheels as they headed back to Metropolis. Lionel’s schedule was too busy to indulge in memory, or philosophical debate with himself. At least of this kind.

In general, Lionel felt it an obligation to both understand, and make people keenly aware, of the theoretical and historical connotations of their actions. For surely, every act, even when it came to business, came with its own philosophical implications. Yet this line of thinking, by which he meant the earlier line of thinking he’d decided he would stop thinking about, felt like an exercise in frivolity, and not the fun kind. Lionel stared at his phone for a moment before remembering what he was doing. He dialled the number a little too forcefully, and put the receiver up to his ear, frowning all the while. But once the other side picked up, Lionel was able to distract himself long enough to make it back to his office at LuthorCorp.

The only problem being that precious little work was completed after that. Lionel dragged a hand across his eyes and threw his pen down, which made a heavy clack as it hit his desk. Irritably, Lionel stood, causing his chair to roll across the floor from the force of his rise. He pressed the button on his espresso machine and tapped the appliance's metal top impatiently as it whirred, grinding the beans inside its mechanism. He barely waited for it to finish pouring before Lionel stole the cup from its base and spun around, sipping the dark roast as he paced, trying to channel some of his restless energy into a productive fervour.

Why would anyone feel the need to document every moment of their child’s life for public record? Lionel’s mind had apparently never left the Kent’s mantelpiece, but he was too newly incensed about the issue to berate himself for it. Lionel had never been one to follow his offspring around with a camera clutched in his hands. And why would anyone need that kind of evidence of their own upbringing? He’d never had a catalogue of photographs from his own childhood, yet Lionel was still perfectly capable of recalling that it had indeed happened. In fact, his mental editorialising was probably preferable to any pretence at objectivity that a camera lens could offer. Some things were better remembered with the privilege of distance.

Lionel couldn’t imagine a world in which his early life was captured and preserved like that; devoid of context, or narrative, for the eyes of some unknown future spectator. That was possibly what had bothered him so much about the Kent’s display. This idea that a person could, just as he had, make it their business to examine your life and come to their own conclusions, with no mediation from you at all. Where did that leave self-determination? How was it possible for a person to take control of their own identity with that hanging over their head?

Lionel put his now empty cup down on top of his piano. His hand trembled a little from the caffeine, making the cup to rattle around in its saucer before he stilled it. A silver frame sat nearby, on the piano’s polished lid. Lionel glanced at it with almost purposeful nonchalance. This was the only item in his office that an outside observer might consider a personal effect. They would be wrong. Lionel could, if he chose, explain in great detail the significance behind each of the artistic and historical pieces he made a habit of displaying.

The photo inside the frame was of course of himself and Lex. The image had been recycled in a multitude of financial trades, decorating articles debating the merits of the father and son team, or rivalry, depending on Lex’s latest mood swing. Lionel’s gaze lingered on the picture for a moment before he rapped his knuckles on the top of the piano and returned to his desk. The two of them hadn’t even been in the same room when the photo was taken. Some junior editor of the LuthorCorp quarterly review had cobbled it together with a computer program, to less than convincing effect. Lionel only kept it in his office for the same reasons he would anything else.

It was a symbol, a reminder of his legacy and the weight on Lex’s shoulders to uphold it. It was constructive, and even useful, as it conveyed a sense of sentimentality to his visitors; creating a misjudgement that could then be preyed upon. But the possibility of miscalculation on his rival’s part wasn’t exactly worth cluttering his space with familial memorabilia. Not that he would have much material to work with had he chosen to. Lionel made a noise as he typed at his keyboard. His son already spent so much time dwelling on the past, Lionel couldn’t imagine if he had provided twenty plus years of mementos to bury him deeper.

That was a weakness, a loss of control. A dependence on physical nostalgia that fate had robbed Lionel of, and that he had saved Lex from. Lionel didn’t need to hoard wistful ephemera. He could see his son whenever he chose to, and Lex was a man now, daily becoming more interesting than he had been as a child. For the second time that day, but not the last, Lionel forced his thoughts in a different direction, and tried to get on with his work.

It lasted until he left the office, and was alone with himself again. A mess of papers lay on his dining room table, covered in the notes and edits he’d been making during dinner. With the warm glow of brandy burning in his chest, Lionel wandered the corridors of his empty Metropolis apartment. Then, without meaning to be there, Lionel stopped in his study. He wrestled with himself a moment, before heaving a heavy sigh and setting his brandy glass down on a bookshelf. Lionel finally surrendered to the reflective mood the day’s proceedings had put him in.

He tugged a worn copy of Gibbon’s _Decline and Fall_ off the shelf and deftly slid open its spine. Tilting the tome, he let a key fall out of it onto his palm. Lionel knelt, one knee pressing into the plush carpet covering his office floor, to unlock the drawer at the base of his desk. There wasn’t much inside. The austerity was a stark contrast to the density of documents filling his cabinets, and the bookcases groaning under the weight of his collection. Lionel gathered what was there and balanced his brandy snifter delicately on top of the pile, keeping it steady with his chin against the glass as he moved to his divan.

He deposited the stack of papers on the linen upholstery, but before he could sit, he noticed a small white square had slipped from his grip and fluttered down to nestle into the thick carpet. Lionel retrieved it and settled back onto his couch, crossing one leg over the other as flipped over the card. He made a small, interested noise as he read the caption scrawled across the picture’s base, in what was unmistakably his own handwriting: _“L & M: 1961”_

The day the picture had captured was unremarkable, made significant only by the circumstances of the photo itself. That summer, a photographer recently graduated from some university had come around the docks with a Polaroid camera to shoot the inhabitants of Suicide Slums as they went about their business. Lionel didn’t remember much about the photographer himself, but he remembered how he’d been jumped by a couple of guys who didn’t take to his Ivy League look. It had served him right, thinking that a couple of leather patches on his skinny elbows would protect him enough to walk around that neighbourhood alone.

Watching it go down, and noticing the shoddy job their peers had done of robbing him, Lionel and Morgan approached the young man. They’d helped him to his feet, and in exchange for a healthy fee for his protection, escorted him home. That fee included his tie pin and wristwatch. The other guys, more intent on scaring the kid off and pawning his camera, hadn’t noticed them. But Lionel had taken a shine to the items, and Morgan was cracking his knuckles, ready to collect. They were handed over quickly enough, though with some reluctance, to the smiling conman and shark-eyed bruiser that the photographer had found himself alone with.

Then, just for good measure, and because he knew the guy wouldn’t want to give them over, Morgan demanded the photos he’d taken that day. It was for privacy reasons, Lionel had judiciously explained, barely able to restrain himself from yelling at Morgan for compromising a perfectly good grift over nothing. Lionel’s silver tongue, primarily good for getting them out of trouble, and getting himself into academic libraries and lectures he had no place in, quickly won Morgan his photographs. They made a hasty retreat from the upstanding neighbourhood as soon as they’d delivered the boy home. Heads held high, lest anyone try to bother them for being there, the two of them left the badly shaken young artist behind them and returned to the docks.

With their legs dangling off the pier and a bottle of cheap gin between them, he and Morgan reviewed the polaroids in the rapidly vanishing daylight. The stiff breeze chilled the skin through his thin trousers, the threadbare material doing little to keep him warm. Lionel wore the photographer’s watch on his wrist and clipped the tie pin to the collar of his worn jacket. Both objects would be hidden by the time he went home, or they would be quickly taken from him. As for what he would do with them after that, the only places Lionel wore a tie were to school and church; at school a pin would be noticed immediately, and he hadn’t been to church in years. So as much as Lionel might have wanted to keep the pin, and he very much did, there was no question he would sell it. Likewise, the watch would only make him a target.

After a while, the ground around them was littered with the polaroid squares. Morgan was primarily interested in pointing out everyone he knew, or who knew someone he knew, and had become absorbed in trying to figure out if the man in the back of one of the photographs was someone he knew. The man in question, who Morgan owed money to, was supposed to be in prison, and therefore a figure of some concern if he was out. Lionel had taken a more intellectual approach, to judge whether the portfolio had any artistic merit.

Most of them were poorly framed, in Lionel’s opinion. There was no evidence in them of a respect for classical sensibilities of composition. He explained this deficiency, in detail, to Morgan, who was eventually able to silence him with the sheer boredom evident on his face. It made them laugh when, not half a minute later, they had come across a picture of them both, almost exactly mirroring that interaction.

It was slightly out of focus, like many of the shots, but it was clearly from earlier that day. At the time Lionel had been reading from _De Vita Caesarum,_ complaining to Morgan about the clear author bias, and the multitude discrepancies in the text. In the photo, Lionel, a cigarette balanced precariously in his mouth as he ranted, was looking incredulously at his book. Morgan, sat beside him, was halfway through a bottle of beer and staring into middle distance with a resigned expression.

Morgan handed Lionel the polaroid with a laugh as he unscrewed the gin bottle again. Lionel slid the picture into his shirt pocket, though he couldn’t say why. They’d stood to leave shortly after that, both quite light-headed, and gathered together the pile of photos they’d acquired. Lionel suggested throwing them into the river, but Morgan quietly tucked them away in his jacket before they made their way home in the darkness.

Lionel took a sip of his brandy and wondered if Morgan still had the photos somewhere. Unlikely, but ultimately possible. For some inexplicable reason, re-living their time in the slums wasn’t an occasional adventure into reminiscence for Morgan. It was a daily, even hourly, reality. Apparently Morgan had not felt the same urge that Lionel had, to scrub the circumstances of their adolescence from his bones. Morgan had chosen instead to make it so much a part of him that he’d never left it. The idea was beyond comprehension to Lionel, for whom re-invention was not only necessary, but infinitely preferable to the alternative. To accede to the whims of fate and the circumstances of one’s birth.

This polaroid had made a convenient bookmark. It had gone with him to Princeton, where it became fairly battered with use, the rate he tore through books. But at some point during his studies, Lionel had retired the photo from duty. He was keenly aware of the way he and his friend appeared in it, and he wasn’t about to let any condescending, stuck-up, Ivy-Leaguer use that against him. It’s efficacy waning, Lionel had stowed this piece of ephemera where only he could view it, if he chose to, which he rarely did. He put the photo aside now, feeling rather like he’d proved a point to himself. The more pictorial evidence that existed about your life before you’d had a chance to craft your identity, the harder it would be to invent yourself.

Lionel shifted his weight, crossing his legs on the other side, as he pulled the pile of effects closer to him. The topmost piece was an elegant, olive green envelope. It had a monogrammed _G.T._ embossed on its seal, and the slight creases on its corners were the only hint that it had been more recently, and regularly, visited than any of its fellow keepsakes. He put the thick envelope aside without opening it. This wasn’t quite the time to review the tasteful boudoir prints he knew were enclosed within the personalised stationery.

Underneath that revealing packet was a set of thin paper books. Yearbooks hadn’t been considered a worthwhile expense in the former Luthor household. Lionel couldn’t imagine that he’d even asked for one past the initial few years he’d been eligible. So, unlike the hardbacked Princeton volume in his bookcase, these books weren’t his, or they hadn’t been before he’d gotten his hands on them. He’d had them retrieved from his high school’s archives, back before the place had been demolished of course.

There were no messages from classmates scrawled in the margins, or meaningless platitudes scattered throughout. Which, in a way, was better than if he’d received them when he’d wanted to. He flipped through one with a cursory interest, stopping for a moment to see his fourteen year old face scowling up at him. Lionel smirked before turning the page. He moved quickly through the ‘most likely to’ section. It was all wrong anyway, none of his classmates had the kind of foresight needed to predict success, let alone the ambition needed to achieve it.

Landing on the clubs and societies pages, it took Lionel a while to find himself, but finally, in poorly printed ink, he saw the name _Lionel Luthor_ written under the chess club banner. That would change in future issues; there were only so many meetings and games one could miss before your talent could no longer save you from being ousted. He took a moment to survey the clean sweep of math and science awards under his name near the back of the book, before setting it and its companions down on his other side.  

These next pictures were what he’d opened the drawer looking to find. Lionel had never been one to follow his children around with a camera, but Lillian, on the other hand. The photos in this plain leather pouch weren’t all the pictures she had taken, not by half, but they were enough. After Lillian had died, Lionel had found a small box of pictures. Most of them were now locked away in storage, along with the Luthor family portrait, a professional album purchased from their wedding photographer, and more recently, a small locket with a picture of Lionel and Lucas inside. Lionel wasn’t about to destroy that, but after recent events, it no longer seemed an appropriate keepsake to hold onto. Lionel hadn’t felt any qualms about taking ownership of the box’s contents. After all, they’d been produced on a camera he’d bought and paid for, so technically they were his by rights.

Very few of Lillian’s photos contained the woman herself, and there were none of Julian. The pictures he had elected to keep in his drawer were also in a minority, as they were those that included Lionel. Most of them must have been taken without Lionel’s knowledge, he couldn’t imagine he would have stopped to pose for them. In some, Lionel was simply a figure in the background, speaking into his hefty mobile phone, pacing in and out of rooms where activities were being pursued in the foreground. Others showed him and Lex in moments he had trouble even remembering, and that he was sure Lex would feel the need to have professionally verified. Most were from before the meteor shower, all were before Julian’s death, and were uncharacteristically tranquil for the father and his eldest son. Presumably that was why Lillian had chosen to immortalise those instances.

There was Lionel, horizontal on the floor and propped up on an elbow, sweater sleeves rolled up off his forearms, controlling the movements of a stuffed toy lion with a bright red mane. Lionel was sure the lion was delivering a speech of some significance to the rest of the gathered animals, and his enraptured son. A re-imagining of the lessons from one of Aesop’s fables, perhaps. Lionel couldn’t really say. In one photo, Lionel, a hand on Lex’s shoulder was instructing Lex for the final time on how to behave on his first day of school. Then in another, shortly after, was fussily fixing Lex’s tie.

His favourite was a particularly thoughtful looking shot of Lionel, apparently from the same day, framed in soft light against a window. It would have made for an attractive author photo on the inside cover of a book jacket, Lionel thought to himself. He might even have used it if he’d known about it at the time. Under that one was a picture of Lex as an infant. Lionel held it up to the lamplight, for a better look. The two of them were asleep, Lex’s head resting on Lionel’s shoulder as he lay across his father’s chest; Lionel, mouth open, was likewise sprawled out in an antique armchair.

Lionel flipped through the rest of the pictures quickly, noticing that he was asleep in many of them. There seemed to be an abundance of images capturing him passed out, fully dressed, above the crumpled covers of their king-sized bed. Or with his head flat on his desk, surrounded by files and documents. Or laying on the couch, a book ready to slip out from underneath his limp fingers. Lionel chose not to dwell on the implications of this running theme.

He shuffled the photos together again, flattening them so none of the corners stuck out at odd angles. He didn’t believe Lex was aware of this collection. He didn’t need to be, in Lionel’s opinion. The boy may enjoy stoking the fires of resentment whenever Lionel made a commentary about his enterprises, or endeavoured any kind of observation at all. But that would pass. Lex would come around, and it wouldn’t be because of some twenty year old set of half-captured memories. Lionel wasn’t about to, the next time Lex delivered an accusation of tyranny or other such nonsense, flash these mementos in response.

What kind of weakness would it be to approach his own son, hat in hand, mustering together his sympathetic evidence? He wasn’t in court. He wasn’t on trial, and he didn’t need to defend himself to anyone. Besides, a strong person with a stronger will, shouldn’t need to know about them. Lionel had never had anything remotely nostalgic to cling to, and that had only made him more independent, better able to govern himself.

Lillian’s pictures lay forgotten as Lionel found the last few items that had lain in his drawer. What did he have in this world as evidence of his own childhood? Two passport photos attached to immigration papers, and a battered mugshot. They’d all been sourced from state’s records, and Lionel would never have even seen them if he’d not had the connections to facilitate their removal. Back then he’d told investigators, insurance and otherwise, of the significant irreplaceable personal effects that had been lost in the fire, but that was only because they had no way of verifying the truth.

There hadn’t been any preciously preserved memories for the fire to destroy. No smiling Kent family photos had burnt off the tenement walls. There was what Lionel now held in his hands, a pair of grainy black and white pictures that didn’t capture the red of Eliza’s hair or his father’s pitiless blue eyes. It was better, in a way, to have this kind of proof; tangible evidence of how you came to be, of lineage, of actions. Immigrating to the United States, and being caught committing petty crime. As far as Lionel was aware, those were the only substantial achievements his parents had ever succeeded in.

Lionel turned the time-damaged police document over. This wasn’t Lachlan’s only arrest, nowhere close, but his Metropolis records had all been purged decades ago. The ink on the back of the photo was faded, but the name and date where legible, as was the location. Lachlan’s appearance in Smallville made sense, in a strange way. For a man not smart enough to evade incarceration, it was surprisingly astute of him to operate somewhere he wasn’t immediately likely to be recognised as a crook. It also explained his father’s somewhat lengthy absences from their Metropolis residence.

Lionel made a small sound and took a sip of his brandy. He’d like to see the photograph that could capture the energy of their apartment during Lachlan’s absence, or its hasty reversal upon his return. Lionel flipped the picture over again, noticing for what might have been the first time, how similar his hands looked to those holding the police reference number. Something seized his mind then, preventing Lionel from seeking out any further resemblances as he considered the man.

The monochromatic image didn’t do Lachlan justice. Lionel remembered him bigger, steelier, and more capable. In his mugshot his father seemed skinny, and underfed. What Lionel remembered as steel, here looked more akin to petulant indignation. And the details of his crime alone, snatching a purse in broad daylight on a busy street, were enough to prove that hard work was no guarantee of accomplishment. Lionel was older now than his father had ever been, but only just. The thought gave him pause. He couldn’t picture Lex in the position he’d been in at that age, and he couldn’t quite decide if he considered that a weakness or a strength.

These official documents, material evidences of a person’s choices, were worth more than any casual snapshot of temporary sentiments. Lionel retrieved Lillian’s photos, pawing through them again. None of them were close to representing the million emotions, confrontations, tensions, that ran through their household on a daily basis. These pictures, though real, were transitory. They weren’t reflective of a life. An image of Lillian was not Lillian, an image of Julian was not Julian, and an image of himself with Lex on his lap, teaching the boy to play chess, did not a happy home life make.

Pretending otherwise, advertising it to Lex and the world by displaying it indiscriminately around his home, seemed like a kind of insecurity Lionel had no need to engage in. Lionel had nothing to prove that he hadn’t already. People would perceive of his life exactly what he wanted them to and that was the end of it. He would be the curator of his own legacy.

Lionel drained his glass, the brief desire for reminiscence passed. He gathered the materials again and dropped them back into the bottom drawer. Closing and locking it, Lionel felt a compartment in his mind slide shut at the same time. He left the room in search of more brandy, and as he did so, admired with a fresh eye the collection of decorative pieces he’d assembled over the years. They said more about who he was than any nostalgic keepsake could.

Back at the dining table, the clock reading a time well past midnight, Lionel sat down again and pulled closer the files he’d been working on before. Finally free to concentrate on the matter at hand, Lionel set about critiquing the report. He might pay Lex a visit the next day, he idly considered, or even the Kent farm. His mouth crooked upwards. Lionel would have gone just to observe Martha’s lovely smile, but he decided he ought not risk prematurely driving Mr Kent to an injurious rage.

No, he would visit Lex. Something told him it was high time he give his son another sermon on personal connections. To drive home his message that to be successful, one had to be self-governing. Nostalgia was a weakness, and Lionel was glad it had no hold over him.


End file.
